MD ANWAR ULLAH, Dhaka: After a five-month hiatus, the country’s sports arena is going to wear a festive look as the Ministry for Youth and Sports permitted different organizations to start their on-field activities in limited scale with taking safety measures.
Earlier, the sports ministry suspended all kinds of sports activities of the country in mid-March when the whole world was crumbling under coronavirus strain and lockdown.
After the announcement from sports authorities and the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) initiative to run the national football training camp, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), Bangladesh Hockey Federation, Athletics Federation have either started or planned to begin their activities.
First of all, Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) began their camp ahead of the reschedule of the FIFA and Asia Cup qualifying round matches for October and November, though later it has to be suspended too.
After footballers, Tigers ahead of their Sri Lanka tour started camp and then Bangladesh Hockey Federation (BHF) set their training programmes with the national and national Under-21 teams.
The youth hockey team have already started their camp under the auspices of Bangladesh Air Force and national team’s camp will start very soon while the Under 2-1 team is scheduled to play Bangabandhu Under-21 Asia Cup in January and National team to play the Asian Champions Cup in March 2021.
Meanwhile, BHF have already appointed head coaches, deputy coaches and managers for the both youth and the national sides with two national stars had the responsibility of head coaches.
BHF signed the contacts with the coaches on September 15 with appointing Mahbub Harun as the head coach of national team and Mamunur Rashid for the Uder-21 youth sides.
The BHF also decided to call a league committee meeting in October for discussion with the teams to decide of beginning of the league.
Athletics Federation is planning to organise camp keeping social distance to stay fit.
General Secretary of the Bangladesh Athletics Federation (BAF) Abdur Rokib Monto told The Independent on Thursday, “All International competitions of 2020 and 2021 were suspended due to coronavirus outbreak but were not cancelled. Rather they were deferred to next year.”
The GS of the BAF Montu while talking to this correspondent, said, “We are positively thinking to organize the national and junior national meet by December as we have a meeting on September 25 to discuss these issues if the current situation permits.”
As all the federations have already begun their campaigns on-field and off-field activities, so the country’s sports arena is going to be festive and full of activities once again.
